FAQ How do I use property pages?

The workbench provides two facilities for presenting the properties
of an object: the Property dialog and the Properties view.

The Property dialog
is invoked by selecting an object and pressing Alt+Enter or by selecting
File > Properties. The workbench provides an action,
PropertyDialogAction, that you can add to your own views menu
for opening the Property dialog. The Property dialog contains pages contributed
by the org.eclipse.ui.propertyPages extension point. Plug-ins can
contribute pages in this way for any type of domain object.

The Properties view, also known as the property sheet, is not populated
using an extension point but is activated through
API, by the PDE editors, or manually, through
Window > Show View.
This view, like the Outline view, asks the active
workbench part to contribute its contents.

When a part becomes active,

the property sheet asks it to adapt to IPropertySheetPage, using
the IAdaptable mechanism:

IWorkbenchPart.getAdapter(IPropertySheetPage.class);

If it wants a completely customized property page, the part can
respond to this request and provide its own page. If the part does not
provide a page, the property sheet presents a default page that solicits
key/value pairs from the active parts selection. This again uses
the IAdaptable mechanism to ask the selected element
whether it wants to contribute properties. This time it asks the element
for an implementation of IPropertySource. The property
source is responsible for providing its keys and values, changing
values, and restoring default values.